25 November 2011

Aquila Corde Armoniche Srl - one of the major producers of gut-strings closed the production on the 14th of November.

The Strad - the major magazine covering news related to the violin announced the news on their website on the 15th.

News quickly spread over the social networks and lead to the wave of panic calls from musicians worldwide trying to buy out whatever remaining stocks of gut strings available for sale. Hardly surprising - no strings, no music.

The cessation of production by Aquila was caused by the EU legislation restricting and effectively banning the use of raw gut materials on the territory of the EU due to BSE fears.

Aquila Corde tried to persuade the EU law-makers to review the law since 2006 and exempt the string-makers from the ban: if sausages have not been outlawed why should musical strings - which are not food - suffer? To this day EU ministries remained deaf.

Aquila is not the first to stop the production of gut strings. Sofracob, the French company which